Porn - I use it and feel bad - help convince me porn is wrong

[GuiltyPornUser]

Firstly, sorry if this is the wrong place to post this, although I thought it may be the most appropriate. I'm a married man, and I use porn fairly regularly. It's not something I feel has a massive negative effect on my life, but I feel bad about it. I'm not someone who specially goes out of my way to buy porn, (I've never paid for it), but with the internet, it's only ever a few clicks away.

I want to be convinced that it's wrong. I recently read Andrea Dworkin's book on pornography, but it hasn't stopped me. I appreciate that a lot of stuff on the web is very brutal and degrading to women, but a lot of the stuff is less obviously so.

My DW wouldn't be happy with me using porn, and I want to stop. I want to be convinced that it's wrong, and how I go about stopping using porn, when it's so easy to find on the internet.

There may be some here who think porn is acceptable and I'm just suffering from some almost religious guilt.

I'd really welcome some advice here, because my DW could find out one day and I want to stop.

Hey stewie, you're welcome. How you feeling today?

Prosperina, your dismissal of the pattern of anecdotal evidence gathered by people like Shelley Lubben is chilling.

We've had a few scientist types on this thread demanding studies that show that women being physically and verbally abused on film is abuse. I'm shocked to the core by such an attitude and actually find it quite frightening. We already discussed this weird unempathetic head in the sand attitude on this thread. Thread is long however so I'm just going to repeat what I said earlier.

"Porn harms women because it sends out a clear message that society has no problem with women being treated as a sub human sex class by men.

Society condoning porn sends out the message loud and clear that it is fine to rape women and children and verbally and physically abuse them.

Porn makes a mockery of the concept of consent and sends out the message that it is fine to do so.

Carmina I'm not 'offended' by porn, I'm fucking revolted by it (I mean this in the 'revolution' sense of the word although the 'disgusted' sense works too).

'Prove beyond reasonable doubt' - get a grip woman. Would you ask someone to prove that films of black people being called niggers and being physically abused by white people 'caused harm' or would you think it was pretty fucking obvious?

Yeah, let's prove that dressing women up as under-age school girls and filming them being gang raped and choked on penises is harmful. What a waste of time when one could just engage one's brain and see the harm."

It is actually amazing how many people are willing to suspend their otherwise fully functioning empathy faculty, when it comes to porn.

I dunno, HB, I do believe in some people their empathy gene is completely absent (especially where their own selfish "needs" are concerned)

Oh yes I agree, a lot of people haven't got that empathy function to begin with. But with porn, some people who usually seem perfectly able to empathise with other people, suddenly become completely unable to perceive the sheer horror of the way some woemn in porn re treated.

It really is as if they are such a different species from other human beings, that they can just shrug and say "well it's their choice" as if that has any fucking relevance. Leaving aside the whole discussion tht could be had about choice, where is the curiosity about why a sentient human being would make tht choice? Where is the honesty about the amount of damage an individual must have suffered, to make such a choice?

The convenient laissez faire liberalism which once said that it's every Englishman's right to sleep in the street if he wants to and therefore the idea of building houses for the poor is a nanny state nonsense, has been co-opted for porn hasn't it? That refusal to examine the circumstances in which human beings make choices. That refusal to imagine yourself in their shoes. Which of course, is what porn encourages, because as the viewer, you are always in the position of the one who is doing to the suffering woman, you are never in the position of the suffering woman who is being done to. You are never invited to identify with her. I suppose that's what makes all these porn users able to take their identification with abuse perpetrators, out of the arena of watchign porn and into the arena of public debate. It must help their distancing mechanism to ahve it re-inforced by that angle of viewing over and over again.

What's your main objective here - (because after 600+ posts I'm still not sure) do you want all pornography banned?

I think I would find it easier to have a discussion with a man who defended porn use and abuse than discuss with these pro porn women.

I'm not sure that any amount of "proof" will implant the nessasary empathy they lack. In my experience men will acccept reasonable arguement, some stats and actually when confronted with the facts show some empathy.

What the hell is going wrong when woman show a severely callous attitude towards the documented suffering of other women.

A yes or no answer would do - do you want all pornography banned?

I speak only for myself............yes.

It's a yes from me too ( and I've said it twice on this thread )

Carmina, I suppose it all depends on how important you think men's orgasms are: to the world at large, to society, and to women.

My take on it is, they're not important at all. Men's orgasms mean zilch.

If even ONE girl or woman has to go through sex even ONCE where she is unable to say "stop" because she's being filmed, and has signed a contract to say she must continue until the money shot, then that is rape, and enough reason for porn to be banned. I'm not even talking about violent, abusive porn here.

And the whole entire point of the porn industry is for men to have fun and orgasm, and for other men to make millions out of it off the backs of women.

Is the existence of the porn industry worth it for women?

no

so I agree with you. Yes, I would like to see porn banned.

Exactly Sakura - it isn't worth it, no one 'needs' pornography.
I personally find the normal everyday porn just as damaging ( Katie Price is a role model to millions of young girls ) so I'd vote to ban the lot.
I've only used porn because it's there, it's legal, and it's easily accesable - if porn disappeared from the Internet today I wouldn't give a toss.

Me too.

Wrong choice of word - but ykwim

Carmina my objective is to get people to look at porn honestly and stop closing their eyes to the damage that it does to both performers and viewers.

Once people stop lying to themselves, everything else stems from that honesty.

In an ideal world you wouldn't need to ban porn because no-one would want to consume something that implied such inhumanity.

In the real world you will always get people who behave with inhumanity. I would simply like those people to be marginal and not part of the mainstream.

The most alarming development about porn in the last couple of decades, is the normalisation of mysogynist porn, objectification of women and the presentation of jacking off to the torture of women as normal, mainstream behaviour. The fact that those of us who question it are shouted down as anti-sex, prudish, manhating loons, shows how all-pervasive such incredibly damaging material has become and how effective the message of the porn industry is. We have got to stop it, the stakes are too high not too. We are fighting for our right and our daughters' rights, to be considered human.

There are some really serious problems with The Porn Report. I've read it and followed the debate around it. Many of its main points are based around the responses of a small sample group which, given that it's composed of porn users, is necessarily made up of people who think porn is ok and have no problem talking about their use of it. Should we really be comforted and surprised by their benign assessments of porn? Conclusions such as that they much preferred seeing people enjoying themselves to people being hurt or looking as though they were in pain in their porn materials are presented as wonderful proof of the basic good intentions of users. Anyone with half an analytical brain cell can see the problem with that.

All that notwithstanding, I think it's very telling that a poster is happy to accept that book at face value because 'it would seem that this is the kind of balanced non-polemical work that is required in this debate'. How can you decide that this is intrinsically a good source without having read it? It?s because you?ve clearly made up your mind before even beginning to do the research and that is something I wouldn?t accept even from one of my first year undergraduates.

HerBEggs; the problem is all porn objectifies women - from page 3 ( is that still going ?) down to the worst porn imaginable - it's all saying the same thing - " I'm here available for you "

I would like paying another person to perform sex acts to be illegal, yes. I would like the distribution of images depicting sex acts to be illegal, yes. (Caveat for those intended for genuine education purposes to be excluded obviously.) I can see no other solution for this problem. I also think people who have been in porn should have legal recourse and be able to sue producers/agents/pimps, etc for the damage they have suffered. I think it should be a criminal offence to distribute images suggestive of rape or underage people. I think it should be illegal to distribute images of unprotected sex and images of abusive sex or people being verbally abused whilst having sex. I think all 'hidden camera' 'voyeur' stuff should be illegal too. I think laws about hate speech should be applied to porn (using the existing ones about race as a starting point). I guess that would make about 99.9% of porn illegal then.

There are already laws in place about porn, for example in California it is is illegal for there to be exchange of bodily fluids on a porn set. This law is flouted all day every day.

I've not said the Porn Report is perfect, but the point I've made is that, as problematic as it is, it's empirical research.

The accusations of lack of empathy when discussing Shelley Lubben is tiresome to say the least, because some people aren't reading what I'm writing, and accusing me of "dismissing" their evidence.

This debate is following a pattern. If you're not virulently anti-porn (I'm anti-porn btw), you're pro-porn, in the same way, I guess, we're all "pro-abortion".

Testimonies from people is also empirical research. Dines's work is also empirical research. You don't need some numbers and a graph for it to be empirical research. Empirical research can be done to support both sides of the argument depending on the parameters. The idea that there is some 'objective' and 'neutral' research to be found on this kind of issue is total nonsense. Research that is done about social issues recognises the sources of subjectivity, it doesn't claim to be 'objective'.

If you're anti porn, why does it matter so much to you to fight people who are arguing against porn? Why not think, I don't agree with the approach they are taking but hey ho I'll add to it with my own approach?

Because I want to know about porn and its effects ...

and if I'm being frightfully honest, I find the attitudes of the anti-porn consensus on here unproductive. Take this thread and read it.

Man comes on, acts very politely, and see where the first attack comes from, and who it's directed at. It's not the man who has come on recognising he has a problem and acts incredibly politely